What I got for Christmas:
sufficiently advanced Intel graphics drivers for 855GM,
in Linux 2.6.37-rc7. No more missing mouse cursor
on boot (and, icing on the Christmas cake, working video
playback!) Thank you to those who worked on this,
particularly since I couldn't actually work out how or where
to submit useful bug reports (and so resorted to my usual
strategy when dealing with laptop-related issues, which is to
contact mjg59 by whatever means available
and follow his suggestions as precisely as possible).